TIME TO GET SOCIAL

3 Tips to Plan Your Social Media For 2017

Do you want your social media to be even more awesome in 2017? Of course you do!

In order to make it possible, use the rest of December to lay the groundwork for your social media success.

New Year is coming in less than a month. Christmas-hysteria is all over the place. Many businesses haven’t yet started with their holiday promotions, and by the time that is done, we are already rushing to buy the last Christmas gifts to our dear ones.

If you feel overwhelmed by it all, or if your Christmas planning is already done, use this time for some planning and goal-setting. December is a perfect time to get your social media plan done for next year. Do like the social media experts, and start thinking about 2017.

Why planning it already? Because when January comes, you’ll have to focus on getting the goals into actions. Coming back from your holidays, you will be eager to be out there and meet your customers, collaborate and get your business going. Phone will be calling and mails will be waiting to be replied.

We just have less room for planning in January.

“A goal without a plan is just a wish.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Everyone is busy with their own thing in December. So take this time to focus on yourself and your business. Follow these 3 tips to get a social media plan for 2017.

Use December as your planning month.

As everyone is getting ready for Christmas and the end of the year, there is not much room for meetings and decision making. Everything is happening in January when people come back from holidays. If you have already contacted possible customers and collaboration partners, they will have you in mind when they get back to work. Instead of putting your effort into finding new customers and trying to compete with everyone else on the Christmas promotions, take this “quiet” time to think about your next year.

Plan 12 months in advance. Write down your vision for your business. What do you want to achieve next year? What would be a dream scenario and what directions do you want to take?The easiest way is to write it all down, or have a special meeting with your coworkers to discuss this vision.

Put your 12 months vision into a 3 months plan. This is where your vision gets into action and measurable goals. Divide it into January, February and March. What will you focus on each month? I usually write my 3-months plan in a Word document, which I then put into actions and organize in Trello. Which leads me to my next point.

I’m a huge fan of Trello. I use it to organize my weekly planning, my 3-months Social Media Plan, my collaborations with customers and work partners. If you haven’t tried it already, check it out now! It’s a great tool to organize your projects. Imagine that you have a board where you can put post-its, and reorganize them into priorities, color label them, put images and links. It has it all.

There are different organizational tools out there. I use Trello, but you might as well try something else which works for you. What’s important is that you have a tool where you can plan and organize your Social Media. It makes a huge difference. You start to have a control over your platforms, and therefore better time optimization and scheduling.

Get updated on the latest trend in social media.

There is so much happening in the field of online marketing. One of the huge trends this year has been video.

It’s mainly focusing on two different ways of using it.

Planned video marketing: Content marketing put into video format

Instant videos: Live Feed on Facebook, Instagram Stories, etc.

All statistics and social media experts keep telling us that video is the best way to get your content out there. So why are many people still hesitating about it? Because it feels a bit like public speaking and we feel like it’s too advanced and complicated to get it right.

It’s not, really. By planning in more video marketing into your online marketing strategy, you will see major improvements in terms of reach and engagement. If you aren’t familiar with it, join one of our video marketing workshop.